Etel Adnan returned again and again to the same landscapes, which she depicted with an uncluttered and apparently simple language, to the point that those places became a familiar setting that encapsulates a whole vision of the world, beyond the familiar academic variations on a theme. She linked her focus on certain spots of the hills of Beirut or Mount Tamalpais, in California, with Paul Cézanne’s ability to scrutinise and reduce reality when looking at Mount Sainte-Victoire in France. Adnan’s concentrating on the closest aspect of the world and on the fractal is indeed similar. In her painting, well-known places become the setting for meeting the intangible. As she explained: ‘Every art is a window into a world that only art can access.You can’t define those worlds.They are epiphanies, visions.’

In addition to her painting, Adnan produced poetry and essays throughout her life. It was only recently, when she was in her early 90s, that her artistic work received widespread acclaim. Hans Ulrich Obrist has called her ‘one of the most influential artists of the 21^st century’. The work owned by the Banco de España stands out for its direct, unbiased depiction of a recognisable landscape among her characteristic small format paintings.The profiles of the mountain range are produced using static facets of glossy, flat colour applied using a palette knife. The scene is thus reduced to its minimum structure, not by striving for a targeted geometric shrinkage but rather by aiming for a certain inner gaze, the result of attentive observation.The artist thus incorporates her psyche into the scene to reproduce it. It is a painting where the outcome, an image of serene yet lush nature, emerges from a contemplative ability beyond mere observation that goes further than just looking: ‘Nature is overwhelming if you really look at it. It’s a burst of fantastic energy. It’s a sort of positive apocalypse.’

Carlos Martín